Suburb Lawyer Indicted In Client Fraud

A north suburban attorney was indicted Monday on charges he defrauded the parents of a 15-year-old youth electrocuted in 1979 out of a $70,000 settlement reached in a lawsuit brought on their behalf.

James J. Hardy, 46, who has offices at 3217 Lake Ave., Wilmette, and lives at 2319 Pebble Fork Ln., Northfield, was charged by a federal grand jury with 12 counts of mail fraud.

Joseph Hartzler, an assistant U.S. attorney, said Hardy received a $70,000 check from Commonwealth Edison Co. to settle a claim brought on behalf of the parents of a Palatine youth who died Sept. 8, 1979, after touching a power line while helping a neighbor remove toilet paper that had been strung from a tree as a prank.

Hartzler said the youth`s parents requested anonymity.

According to the indictment, Hardy forged the signatures of the dead youth`s parents on a release from liability from Edison and pocketed the check.

Four months after he secretly negotiated the settlement, Hartzler charged, Hardy filed a lawsuit against Edison on behalf of the parents. To prevent discovery of the settlement, Hardy never served notice of the lawsuit on Edison, the indictment alleged.

Six months after the suit was filed, it was dismissed because Hardy never pursued it, according to the indictment.

As part of his effort to convince the parents that he was prosecuting the lawsuit, Hardy submitted a phony set of questions to the parents that they answered and returned to Hardy to be filed in court, the indictment charged.

Those questions and answers were never filed and ``in order to prevent anyone from discovering that the lawsuit was not genuine. . . . Hardy went to the Clerk of Court`s office, asked to see the court file for the lawsuit and then surreptitiously destroyed the file,`` Hartzler said.

For more than four years, the indictment charged, Hardy misled the youth`s parents and ``lulled them into believing he was honestly representing them when he had actually forged their signatures on the $70,000 settlement check and converted the proceeds to his own use in May, 1981,`` Hartzler said. In November, 1985, the parents discovered that the lawsuit had been dismissed. When the youth`s father asked Hardy about the dismissal, Hardy lied, saying that the dismissal was only a matter of procedure and that the case could be reinstated, the indictment said. However, the period for reinstatement had expired and the claim against Edison was lost forever, the indictment stated.

In addition, Hartzler said, Hardy misled the parents as recently as last December, telling them that Edison might consider a $40,000 settlement.

Edison was not accused of any wrongdoing and was listed as an additional victim in the indictment.

Hartzler urged members of the public who believed they may have been similarly defrauded to contact U.S. Postal Inspector Michael Rogers at 765-4500 or the U.S. attorney`s office at 353-5561.

Each mail fraud charge against Hardy carries a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison and a $1,000 fine.